


Five things Vaughn  has always wanted to say to certain people but never dared to

by kangeiko



Category: Alias
Genre: 5 Things, Community: fanfic100, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-06
Updated: 2006-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:25:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the title says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five things Vaughn  has always wanted to say to certain people but never dared to

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mona (monanotlisa)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/gifts).



> #4 is for fanfic100 Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane #5 - outsides My table is [here](http://kangeiko.livejournal.com/113677.html).

  
**1\. On parenting  
**  
He's sitting outside in the frigid air, rubbing his hands together for warmth and not daring to say anything at all. Beside him, Jack is unnaturally still, and Vaughn has to fight the urge to check that his lips have not turned blue. He'd always half-thought that Jack must be cold-blooded, and the memory shames him.

He shuffles his feet.

"Did she like it here?" He asks at last. He doesn't have to specify who 'she' is; what else does he have in common with _Jack_, of all people?

Jack is silent for so long that Vaughn begins to wonder if he's heard him at all. "She's never been here," he says at last. His words are slow, like he's pulling them out by the roots. "We had a holiday planned, but then her mother -" he hesitates. "Then Irina disappeared, and I wasn't around. So we had to cancel." He staring at the far side of the frozen lake, where small children are still valiantly trying to stay upright. Their parents are occasionally reaching over to grab them by their collars and unceremoniously straighten them; once they skate away, however, the small figures are once again pinwheeling, limbs flying open across the ice.

Vaughn stared at the smallest figure, still too small and rounded to resemble anything other than an orange starfish with a blue cap. He couldn't tell if it was a girl or a boy, but he supposed it didn't matter. It fluttered about the ice for a little bit, then decided that it had had enough and launched itself at the nearest adult.

He wondered if he was betraying a confidence.

He wondered if it mattered.

"She felt guilty," he said at last, eyes fixed on the orange child. The adults gathered around it, grabbing a limb and spinning it around. He could hear the delighted shrieks skip across the ice.

Jack shifted beside him. "I don't understand."

"Sydney. She felt guilty. I didn't know that this was the place she never made it to, but I - she told me about it. About the cancelled holiday, I mean." The blue cap flew off and one of the older children went racing after it. "She said she was so angry with you then, for abandoning her after her mother died."

Jack was perfectly still.

The cap replaced, the small orange-clad child was carried off the ice by one of the adults, still shrieking delightedly. "She also said how guilty she felt when she found out where you were during that time." He patted his hands together and turned to face Jack. "She felt guilty because she'd blamed you for something that wasn't your fault," he said at last.

Jack said nothing at all.

*

 

  
**2\. On priorities**

"I need an extension," he told his supervisor.

She scowled. "You've had two extensions already," she pointed out, tapping her capped pen on the stack of grading papers. "Why do you need a third?"

_Because people other than me decide my life._

Because I lie every time I sign my name on the frontispiece declaration.

Because I don't think that I'm going to be a teacher.

"Family emergency," he said, and looked appropriately stressed.

*

 

 

**3\. On curiosity**

He visits Will in the hospital and brings him GQ and a box of chocolates. Will looks pale in his hospital gown, with his hair shaved off and various needles sticking out of his skin.

"You're here early," Will says in a raspy voice. They had taken him off the respirator a couple of days ago and although his lungs looked promising, his voice still had some way to go.

"I have an early flight and I didn't want to cut our visit short," Vaughn says, surrendering his gifts.

Will nods and slowly flicks his eyes over GQ, poking the chocolates and attempting a smile. Vaughn sits in a chair and watches.

He wonders if it's too early or too late to express his condolences for Francie. He wonders if it's too early or too late to talk about Sydney.

He wonders if it's too early or too late to say he wished he'd just told Will to keep his damn mouth shut and his pants zipped.

He thinks that maybe he needs to go to the gym before the flight and kick the shit out of a punchbag or two.

Two hours pass.

"Well, I'd better go," he says. Will nods, eyes hollow.

*

 

 

**4\. On brothers**

Sometimes, Vaughn wonders what would happen if Weiss went bad. He knows that it'll never happen because Weiss going bad is just plain wrong and it doesn't make any sense in his brain. But that's what the Agency thought about Arvin Sloane at one time, he reminds himself, and look how _that_ turned out.

If Weiss went bad - a hypothetical worst-case and unlikely scenario - Vaughn knows that he'd be the one heading the taskforce. He knows, because he's read Jack's file and he can pretty much figure the reasoning behind it. Or maybe - like Jack - he'd end up as a mole, smiling and hanging out with Eric like nothing had changed, like _they_ hadn't changed.

(He watches Jack sometimes: grainy video footage of him having public meetings with Sloane, safe in their anonymity. They sit comfortably close, their bodies so familiar to each other that they no longer need that extra few inches of personal space. Not even Jack.

Sometimes, he even laughs.)

Weiss is lounging on his couch, eating nachos and shouting at the screen. "Can you believe that?" He leans across Vaughn and snags another beer, bracing himself across Vaughn's thighs. "That ref's not worth shit."

"You have no appreciation for the fine art of ice hockey," he says, laughing, and the thought fades.

*

 

 

**5\. On self-sacrifice**

He was a little too slow, was all, and the dart caught him on the shoulder. One half-second faster, and it would have missed him and hit Sydney. So, really, it's better this way.

Vaughn is desperately trying to hang on to that thought as the world spins and sways as if it had become fixed on a carousel. Sydney's face swims into focus, or what he thinks might be her face; all he can see is a blur of pale skin framed by black. Her hair fans around her like a halo, and there are hands at his chest, easing him out of his clothing. His breath hitches and there is a tinny sound in his ears.

Everyone seems to be terribly far away, and he can feel himself fading. Colours swamp him, swarming and scuttling across each other. The tinny sound insensifies and he recognises that it's a woman screaming.

It's better this way, Vaughn thinks, but he can't really remember why that is, or what the alternative could be. _It's better this way_, and it is fading like woodsmoke in the air. The only thing that remains is the eerie impression that he's still speaking, long after his body cools.

 

 

*

fin


End file.
